January 16, 2011 Internet Crime Warnings From Satsuma Police www.privateofficer.com
Satsuma Police Department’s Lt. Jana Dukes remembers it well. “People contacted us from across the country trying to find them,” she recalls. The unscrupulous couple was taking hundreds of orders and money and delivering nothing.
Working with a network of angry eBay-ers and the FBI, the police arrested the duo.
“Don’t let your guard down,” Dukes warns. “Unfortunately, Internet crime and identity theft are alive and well.”
Satsuma Police Chief David Benefield sent Dukes to the Alabama Attorney General’s 2010 Law Enforcement Summit in Montgomery, where approximately 600 law officers from across the state learned the tools and techniques of cyber crime and identify theft.
According to the Federal Trade Commission’s state rankings, Alabama is 17th nationally in identity theft cases. “People need to realize the dangers lurking in common computer applications like Facebook, music download sites, smart phones and e-mail,” Dukes said.
“Free” music download sites are especially notorious, she said. Once the link is clicked on, “free tunes” are uploaded as promised — along with viruses that steal personal computer information, including bank account pin numbers and passwords.
A summit class speaker told about a case involving a California city employee downloading music from her town hall office computer. A secret program was embedded, which not only stole the employee’s I.D., but much more. Her city office computer became the virus’ gateway into city coffers, depleting the town treasury.
“Nothing is free,” Dukes advised, “especially over the Internet.” If you see an offer for free music, don’t touch it, she said. Go instead to legitimate sites, including iTunes (owned by Apple Computer Company), which charge a price for safe downloads.
Social networking can also be unsafe, Dukes warned. “All Facebook users see quizzes like ‘What Kind of Flower Would You Be?’ or ‘What Celebrity Are You Most Like?’ Some of these are after personal information,” she said. “The game works by asking the Facebooker questions, which supposedly reveal what type person he/she is.”
Embedded in those questions will be inquiries for details, such as the user’s mother’s maiden name, high school mascot or birthday. These are security questions often asked by banks when issuing forgotten account passwords. Armed with the stolen information, a Facebook hacker can access your financial accounts as easily as you can.
But cyber crime and identity theft doesn’t stop with home computers. There is gold in your ATM card, too.
“Locally, our main problem involving identify theft is an occasional dishonest store cashier,” Dukes said. People think if their card is given back quickly after ringing up a sale, the cashier couldn’t possibly have time to memorize the credit card information. Wrong.
“All a cashier has to do is remember the last four digits,” Dukes said. “The rest of the card number is electronically stored in the store’s card reader. I’ve seen surveillance videos of cashiers lip-syncing numbers to memory as they jot down the four digits.”
Thieves also know how to steal key parts of card readers at gas pumps and the data line that transmits pump purchase information to the cash register.
“Waiting for a gas station worker to turn his back, a good thief can exchange the store’s data cord, installing his own in two seconds,” said Dukes. “A customer pumps gas and pays with his debit card — which is retrieved by a cell phone into the wrong hands.”
Criminals also install bogus card readers over ATM machines. When an unsuspecting patron inserts a card and enters the PIN, the bad guys have it, not the bank.
“Report any suspicious ATM card reader that just doesn’t ‘feel’ right,” Dukes said. “Don’t assume the bank is aware of it. Most banks use outside services to service and inspect their ATM machines.”
“Awareness is the key,” added Satsuma police officer Corp. Kent Sellers. “Stay suspicious and question any money transfer over the Internet or a machine.”
Source:AL.com
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